18126/X Marks the Movie Night

X Marks the Movie Night
Date of Scene:	31 May 2024
Location:	Jubilee and Noriko's Apt - College House
Synopsis:	Noriko schedules a Movie Night, but accuses Jubes of forgetting. Jubes has a better idea, after putting up with Noriko's unfortunate weirdness.
Cast of Characters:	Noriko Ashida, Jubilation Lee

---

Noriko Ashida has posed:
It's a nearly balmy night if it weren't for a cool breeze rustling the trees outside.  A perfect night for a hunt.  The moon is full, casting its romantic rays down to set the landscape awash in a pale glow.

But none of that matters.  On the fridge there was a recent addition, a new calendar, the one from the power company that Jubes threw out from the college house central mail.  There are little cartoon glowbugs doing stupid things like screwing in lightbulbs together (it takes 5 of them to do this).  Today there is a big fat X, the only thing on the calendar.  It says MOVIE NIGHT in black block letters out next to it, spilling over a few days from this week and last at a diagonal.  For any of those with any doubt on the author, there are random little singe marks around the block letters indicating where Nori's attention shifted predominantly over toward making clean lines with the over-intensity it requires to manipulate a marker with gauntlets.

Noriko has already begun popping some popcorn; it's rotating in the microwave right now.  The TV is on, though just sitting on a menu, and Noriko is nowhere to be seen, since she's taking a shower.  She already finished her run, both expending excess charge and sucking in a bunch more after her trail through the city.  It's the perfect way to keep things moving and cycle.

A few candles are lit, nothing pungent or florally.  Some of those sorts of things have quietly trickled out of the home after Jubilation had her transformation.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The recent uptick in mutant-human tensions has created a unique new market for Jubilation Lee. Some mutants have decided to apply an abundance of caution to their business dealings and insisting on only using a mutant notary public, so she's been a little busier than usual. Her clients have to put up with her unusual working hours and insistence that they meet in a public place, but that's a small price to pay for peace of mind. Jubes tosses her keys onto the counter and stuffs a fistful of money into the large mason jar -- LITTLE NORI'S COLLEGE FUND -- next to the door. Not seeing Nori but hearing the shower going is enough for Jubilation to connect the dots and raise her voice to describe her day.

    "So, this guy wasted, like, a whole hour of my night trying to get me to notarize his marriage license application even though his lucky lady wasn't there. I was like... Dude! She's gotta be here to sign it, like, so I can see her do it. And he's like, uh, no, and I was like, uh, yeah! New York Notarial Law... Section 182.3, Subsection A, Number 3 says... no stamps unless I can see the whites of your eyes!" She's paraphrasing and mixing 182.3-a with a famous quote from the Revolutionary War. It's a dumb thing to share, but the never ending drudgery of routine often involves exaggerating the foils of your time at work.

    By now, Jubilee has busied herself with the fridge and its contents. "Popcorn, huh?" she calls out, still trusting that Noriko can hear her shouting while taking her shower. For herself, she's started to grab a couple of Red Cross pouches from inside the fridge.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko doesn't catch everything, primarily how much time the guy wasted on account of the electrical crackling in her ears.  It tickles, and she tries to suppress her response, causing some spurious little giggles.  Today she wants to make sure she gets everything super clean.  It's not every single day that she giggles in the shower.

"Yeah!  You didn't forget?!-Oh I picked up some blood for you.  It was on the way home."  And Jubilation does find some pouches with fresher dates in her favorite variety there.

Suddenly, Noriko appears at the doorframe to the bedroom, wrapped in a towel and rubbing her blue damp hair with another towel.  She tilts her head curiously, obviously making sure she doesn't miss Jubilation's reaction to her question.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Oh..." Jubilee looks at the newly stocked Red Cross bag, noticing that it's actually a lot better than what she expected. "O-negative...." she reads, impressed with its contents. She also grabs a bottle of hot sauce and gives the fridge door a little nudge with her hip. "Thanks!" Jubes shouts before setting it down on the counter next to a highball glass. "Universal donor...." Jubilee mutters, imitating Dwight Schrute's appreciation for the type from a particular episode of The Office. After tearing off the corner of the pouch, Jubilee empties it into the glass and leaves the empty husk in the sink. She adds a couple of drops of hot sauce and heads for the living room. At the halfway point, Jubilation leaps into the air and extends her legs in a mock impression of a ballet dancer, using it to privately satisfy her attention deficit.

    When Noriko comes in, she'll find Jubilee jumping up and down on the couch while holding the glass of blood. She looks over at Noriko like a deer in headlights and stops jumping. Did she forget? "Oh, what...is it...popcorn ni----" That's not...right. "Po...mo...MOVIE NIGHT! No way!"

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko's hand that was blurring as she 'towel dried' comes to a stop and her brow draws together, then a smirk emerges.  She's really not sure how Jubes isn't spilling a drop.  She can watch Jubilation in slow motion, but the truth is there's no magic to it...at least in the sense that Jubilation's arm, and by extension of that, the glass, seem to interpolate along just the right angles without a thought.

But then, the weird pauses between words start, and Noriko zips back into Jubilation's frame of reference.  "You forgot."  A beat.  "You even forgot the /word/."  Noriko sighs softly as she turns to go back into the bathroom and continue getting ready.  For her, she's taking her sweet time, deliberately doing it in real time.  She's even putting on makeup.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I did not! It's Movies Night! I know that!" Jubes protests, immediately realizing that she should've said 'movie' and not 'movies' but... what's done is done. She tries another approach by making a couple of flailing gestures with her empty hand towards the calendar over in the kitchen. "Besides! Those things are never, like..... intuitive. It changes from one day to the other in the middle of the night. It's stupid! How am I supposed to know when stuff happens?" It's not the strongest argument, but there's some logic hidden in her nonsense. Calendars are not necessarily friendly towards the nocturnal lifestyle and could possibly introduce some ambiguity. Still, it's Jubilee, so who knows?

    Jubilation jumps one last time and lands in a seated position on the couch, nursing her glass of blood like she just worked all day at a 1950s ad agency on Madison Avenue.

    "I've only been home for like... a minute!" Jubilation complains, becoming more and more husband-like as she goes. "Can't even have one moment's peace...." she mutters, frowning at her glass before taking a big gulp. "Can't even enjoy the universal donor..." Jubes mopes quietly.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko reappears to roll her eyes at the plurality of movies as she walks all the way across to the microwave in real time.  She's wearing some shortish, black cotton shorts and a loose, nearly athletic tank, though she has decided not to bother with a bra.  She arrives at the microwave door right when it comes to 0.

"I wrote it over the night!"  That is, 'MOVIE NIGHT' spans over two squares, and it does, but it also keeps trailing over other squares and weeks.  Apparently Jubilation was just supposed to deduce that the first line it crossed was the night it was scheduled for.

"I'll put a little half moon on the line for the night okay?" Noriko offers over her shoulder as she reaches to extract the bowl from the microwave.  She might as well have added 'for you' in there, though she doesn't.

"I just..."  Noriko pauses at the threshold from the kitchen to the den, facing the couch with her bowl in one hand and a tall glass and a two liter soda somehow clutched easily between her fingers like a waitress setting down six glasses, except with less need for care.  The strength alone is holding the two liter out at an angle.  "I was looking forward to it."

The speedster blur-slinks to the couch and flops down unceremoniously after the things she brought get popped onto the coffee table in a flash.  Some of the popcorn hops up in the air and then appears to teleport back down into the bowl all safe and sound.  "...I like your couch-dancing."  Nori turns her head to look to Jubes, her gaze warm, like her admission.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I just thought you ran out of room..." Jubilee replies, sitting up so she can look over the edge of the couch at the calendar they're arguing about. She stares at it, giving the calendar a moment of appreciation before turning back towards Nori. "Sorry for doubting you," Jubes adds, not understanding that she might have actually won this point or, perhaps more accurately, not really caring to rub Nori's nose in it. Instead, Jubilee just takes another gulp from her glass and slumps a little. "No 'just' ... no 'just'..." Jubilation quietly protests Noriko's opening of 'I just...' The vampire gestures vaguely in the speedster's direction, then her own, then the TV. "We're here now! It's Movies Night and it's about to begin!" she announces, really leaning into the pluralization with all she's got. She takes another too-large-for-polite-society gulp of blood and looks up at Noriko.

    "My what?" she asks, voice gurgling a little as the words form before she's completely swallowed the blood. A vision of loveliness.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Nori's smart enough to know she might not totally be an angel in this situation.  She did draw on the calendar pretty quickly.  It was in the wake of the Crocodile Mile idea incident.  She would /not/ have anymore misunderstandings!  And now?

"Well I did," Noriko admits, "But I ran out of room on purpose...and then I ran out of room again."  It sounds like she didn't intend the latter consequence of her enthusiasm, her demeanor softening with each admission.

"Your couch-dancing!" Noriko perks up at getting to use the newfound term, leaning into the magic of Movie Night, and in toward Jubilation till she comes to a pause a few inches away.  "Swallow," she clips, as if reminding Jubes to keep her mouth clear when talking without going there.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I wasn't dancing," Jubilee replies, sounding very much like she believes it. Does she even keep track of her own nonsense? Still, though her mouth remains full, Jubilation nods her head enthusiastically at something, as though picking up on some non-verbal message. The mouthful of blood goes down in a single gulp and the empty glass is dropped onto the coffee table. Sometimes, if they're not paying attention to their own otherworldliness, vampires can appear to move in impossibly delicate ways through what they'd dismiss as just a series of simple gestures. That's what happens here, as Jubilee suddenly has a travel-sized bottle of Scope already in her hands, already opened, and already emptied into her mouth. After some swishing around, she leans forward again and spits it out into the glass. Her earlier enthusiasm was for Noriko's earlier attempt to lean in and the Scope was to remove any reason she'd stop.

    Jubilation climbs across the couch and practically smothers Noriko with her body, subjecting the speedster to a few moments of minty-fresh hormones. The kisses that come are well beyond what someone would be comfortable doing with an audience, spiced up with pointless inhales of air, hands that wander across the speedster's tanktop, and soft noises that betray her motives. And then.... it's over. Jubilation is back on her side of the couch, ready with a huge, fangy grin. "Aren't you glad that movies are longer now?" she jokes before reclining back against the arm of the couch. She makes a face and then lifts her behind to retrieve the remote she just sat on.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko, lamb that she is, patiently waits in place, oh so casually.  She allows the moments to melt along as Jubilation takes care of the business of the moment.  It's a surrender to a simpler time, her mind not racing on this or that or whys or hows, especially when Jubes climbs atop her.

The speedster's body is alive with energy on account of the lack of her gauntlets.  Occasionally, like at the moment of contact, there is a ripple of a low grade buzz that travels in a strangely wave like pattern.  Noriko seems entirely captured from that initial touch, that is until that touch abruptly ceases.  It leaves Noriko abuzz, quite literally; the lights and TV both flicker.

Hopefully that only affected their apartment.

"Uh..Yeah."  Noriko's hands aren't ready to leave Jubilation yet!  Her fingers slip from Jubes reluctantly and then she adjusts to try and get up close to the vampire right when the rear is lifted.  Bad timing.  Even speedsters have it once in awhile.

"How much longer are they now?"  It's a sign Jubilation might have short-circuited the speedster's brain, but she's reaching to slip her arm around Jubes as soon as she settles back down.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation smiles at Nori, finding herself in that same, warm space where life's questions just aren't that important anymore. In an instant, the universe has taken them back to a simpler time when Jean Grey was the boss at the end of the video game and their worst problem was just keeping all of this a secret.

    With Noriko now encroaching on /her/ territory, Jubilation returns once more to her playful expression of overactive teenage urges. It's an age when her capacity for emotions has exceeded her ability to express them, so relying on her body to do it just makes so much sense. She allows a few more expressions to come, placing them on Nori's mouth, her ear, her neck, before leaning back and snuggling against the speedster.

    "Like, multiple hours..." Jubilee answers before pointing the remote at the TV and summoning Netflix.

    Instead of worrying about the increasing levels of danger in the world, Jubes just places the bowl of popcorn into her lap, takes a piece, and brings it up to Noriko's mouth, gently grazing it against the speedster's lip.

    "What are we watching for Movies Night?" she asks as she reaches for another piece of popcorn.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"'The Lost Boys,' I figured we could make fun of the bro-ey goth gang."  Noriko has no idea how long 'The Lost Boys' is.  It's not even two hours long.  She indulges in the contact with the vampire.  With how warm Nori runs, Jubilation's coolness (when she isn't affecting some warmth) isn't so terrible now that she doesn't think about morbid things.

"Wait, is that on Netflix?"  Noriko didn't quite do /all/ of her homework it seems.  She might have spent an inordinate amount of energy and time rifling through titles, movie forums, and other time sucks to get to her selection.  She may have even bought a new candle.  But check to see if the golden movie is on their streaming plan?

Noriko hopelessly takes each fluff of popcorn, just using the tip of her tongue for the job.  Even a speedster can't technically do two things at once, unless that's something that's been mutated.  Noriko, at this moment, is not showing off that kind of mutation.  She kind of stares, smiling a little, not quite realizing the extent of her blunder as she wades through the moment like it's cotton candy.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "The Lost Boys!" Jubilee exclaims, rolling her eyes with a sarcastic smile to take the edge off. It's an older, campy vampire movie that has enjoyed a cult classic status among its intended audience for a long, long time. But would a vampire appreciate it? Jubilation gives her answer by tossing a handful of popcorn at Noriko, trusting that she'll be able to handle the cleanup without complaining.

    "Yeah, it's on thereeeeee...." Jubes answers, dragging that last sound out to properly signal her feeling about it. Still, Jubilation doesn't complain further, instead choosing to boop her finger on the remote a couple of times to get it started.

    As soon as the Netflix logo appears and signals that the movie will start, Jubilation tosses the remote to the side and turns to face Noriko. She swings her leg over the speedster's lap and links her hands behind her neck before the kissing resumes again.

    The Lost Boys has approximately ten minutes of credits before the first line of dialogue.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko handles cleanup before it is even necessary.  For a long time, Noriko did not understand what people meant by the 5 second rule.  For a very very, embarrassingly long time.  That's because she didn't quite connect that other people don't just pick things up before they fall to the ground.

Not a piece of popcorn makes contact with the floor.  Noriko, the show off that she is, actually moves at blurry speed to catch each in her mouth.  This is actually difficult for the speedster, just in different ways.  She has to make sure she doesn't surge faster than her causal, most natural velocity so that Jubilation can see it all, she has to actually be able to catch each one, which at that speed, is actually difficult to do.  It's like she's showing off how she's actually physically gifted beyond her mutant ability, just at a different scale...that no human could ever reach.  Yep, showoff.

"I GOT IT!" Noriko exclaims suddenly, her gauntlets shooting up in triumph, completely betraying her doubt that she might not pull it off.  Completely unfazed by being ribbed in any way for her choice of movie.

It's almost like Noriko knows this will all work out somehow, like she knows what's coming next...maybe it's because of the countless crappy vampire movies in their streaming histories.  Maybe she saw it's been awhile since they turned on something appropriately trashy for the mood.

Those candles must be the special long lasting kind, because they, also, are still going strong, and suddenly seemingly more appropriate when Jubilation redirects her attention toward Noriko.

"Mmm."  There is nothing like a squeak in the gauntlets that will kill the mood, so Noriko made sure to oil them a little before she hit the shower.  That said, they're still noisy when she flexes them into fists briefly, suppressing an electrical surge.  After the initial touch, Noriko's hands relax and she blindly fumbles at her gauntlets at regular speed, being tethered to the moment by their kiss.  She won't even break from it for a moment.

This is what success looks like.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Hands go where they shouldn't. Candles, long lasting they may be, are a non-factor. The movie struggles to be noticed. Par for the course, really. The noisy gauntlets are even ignored for the first few moments. Eventually, though, Jubilation decides that she has heard enough. Without breaking free from their kiss, she blindly feels for Noriko's metal hands and forces them to separate. Jubilation places one of them onto one of her butt cheeks and the other one on her chest.

    After a couple of seconds like this, Jubilation breaks from the kiss, laughing at the absurdity of it. The familiar sounds of Kiefer Sutherland leading his little pack of punk vampires across the Santa Carla boardwalk signal that their time is at an end, anyway. Jubes leans in and plants a not-at-all chaste kiss on Noriko's earlobe before climbing off of her.

    She settles back into that same posture from earlier, leaning back against the speedster and pulling the bowl of popcorn back into her lap. "There's one thing about living in Santa Carla I could never stomach. All the damn vampires," Jubes mutters, trying her best to sound like the grandfather from the movie. The line won't come until later but it's the most famous one.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Metal hands are easy to find.  They match the coldness of Jubilation's skin, but even with that similarity, they've always been a thorn in Noriko's mind.  There's a brief flush of life in Noriko's cheeks when Jubilation takes control of her hands.  The speedster puts out enough heat for the both of them in these moments.  But then, something shifts, quickly, and Noriko is back at it again...that is, not removing her gauntlets, but acting like, for once, they don't exist.

It's a fleeting moment of unabashed glory, one that Noriko has no self-awareness around because...boobies.  Then, what?  Noriko looks slightly confused when Jubilation breaks the kiss and pouts exaggeratedly so.  A smirk returns at the extra attention though.

Nori puts her arm around Jubes and laughs.  "I want that guy in our neighborhood," which is a bit moot, considering they live in a glorified college dorm.

Noriko loves movies and TV and all of that.  Often it was her only escape in her adolescence.  But what has probably become evident over the years is that Noriko just cannot fully pay attention.  Nothing plays out at her natural velocity.  Jubilation being around just makes it all the more challenging, which might be one of the reasons they end up watching a bunch of trashy movies that are forgiving enough to ignore and kind of simple in plot.

"I didn't think we would actually /watch/ it this time."  Noriko laughs and snatches some popcorn with her freer hand.  It's a casual cover.  She's just waiting to see how Jubilation reacts and the speedster's lack of natural body movement betrays that to the observant.  She's held her breath without realizing it, as if it might interfere with assessment.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Which one? Him?" Jubilee points at the screen, index finger directed squarely at Kiefer Sutherland and his blonde mullet. "...Or him?" Corey Haim. "...Or him?" Alex Winter. "...Or him?" Corey Feldman. "...Or did you mean...?" Jason Patric.

    "This movie has a lot of lost boys," Jubilation points out.

    The metal handful of popcorn catches Jubilee's eye. She squints and holds back a growing smirk. Suddenly, both hands snap forward and take hold of Noriko's fingers. She tries to pry them open, presumably to properly protest the speedster feeding popcorn to herself.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Nope," Noriko says nonchalantly as if they've just headed straight into a game of  Clue.  "His hair tail isn't long enough," she declares as to why he wasn't selected.

"The old guy!"  Noriko hadn't even noticed the array of Lost Boys till Jubilation pointed out, and thinks nothing of it either.  Though she does wonder aloud, "Why did they need so many lost boys?"

This is about the time Jubilation captures her fingers.  Nori doesn't realize it at first and there's a moment where her gauntlets seem almost robotic in nature due to their unyielding force, something she's usually quite attentive towards.  But it isn't but a little hitch in Jubilation's world; it passes quickly and Noriko's hand yields to capture.  "My popcorn," she whispers in feeble protest to no one in particular, though she is looking at the popcorn bowl.  She opens her mouth as if completing one half of the gesture might get the other half of the activity to happen.

Come on universe, you can do it!  Nori opens her mouth a little wider.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "It's good to have spares," Jubilation explains. She says it so matter of factly that it must be some kind of vampire logic. "And... I don't think you'd like gramps as much as you think. He's got a fridge full of snacks but no one's allowed to have any."

    Once the popcorn is within her grasp, Jubilee doesn't break eye contact with Noriko. It's an amount of eye contact that borders on intense. There's nothing else in the room, the world, the universe. She's not using some vampire trickery with her eyes, either. It's just her normal baby browns.

    Just her, Noriko, and... the dozen or so pieces of popcorn that Jubilation stuffs into the speedster's mouth.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Oh, yeah," Noriko realizes as if it makes perfect sense to have spares, but it's obviously not her initial instinct.  She doesn't really rely on people much.  As for gramps... "Well I'd want him to be around, not all up in my fridge.  Besides, then I would know I could talk to him," or at him, "without any fear of him inviting me inside his creepy apartment."  Someone watched too much TV growing up?  Or just too much time on the streets.

The speedster might be able to detect how nutty the intensity is if she was able to tell the passage of time in a direct way.  To her, it does seem unusually long.  This leads to a moment of realization, followed by indulgence as the speedster gazes back.  Her mouth relaxes a little, less insistent now that she knows some day...maybe food will come.  Someday, maybe something else better.

But it's food.  A dozen pieces of popcorn is at least a Jubilation-handful.  Noriko is going with the flow, trying to maintain the sexiness of the moment...against an avalanche of popcorn.  She stops the flow of time (nearly) in a panic, but that just stops the avalanche mid-munch and she nearly chokes, confused only for an instant before she woodchippers some away at high speed and ends with a dainty final fluff in real time.

Still sexy?

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation rides that line between sexy and silly, almost to a fault these nights, but there are limits. That look in her eyes is unmistakably intended to signal that the time for moving watching is rapidly coming to an end, but the handful of popcorn creates a small conflict.

    Jubes grins a little, especially at that first hint of surprise and shock in Noriko's eye, but there's a quick shift to concern just microseconds after the speedster's moment of panic. And then....

    Jubilation sits motionless with a blank expression while her face and hair are covered in a fine mist of chewed popcorn exhaust.

    Blink. Blink blink.

    "Of all the ways I thought that would go, that was not one them," she mutters. She still hasn't cleaned herself off.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko also blinks.  She finally realizes that she's woodchippered popcorn all over Jubilation's face.  Her mouth is left slightly open in shock.  This wasn't what she planned for the evening.  Nope.

"One sec.  Close your eyes."  Noriko makes a tiny hole with her lips and blows the dust away like she's a desktop vacuum in reverse.  Well, most of it.  "You have some still..." Nori's about to reach up with her gauntlets, but the instinct is weird and she has no desire to move her arm from around Jubes. She leans to kiss and get the remaining dust away.  No doubt it tastes like sand, deja vu, and the gross stuff it would produce should she ingest it.

"Sooo, can we act like that never happened?"  Now it's Noriko's turn to use her powers of persuasion.  She's not as good at it as Jubes, and even if Jubes doesn't rely on her vampiric powers, Noriko sure could use them.  Her expression is too cartoony and something a 4 year old would do to be effective.  Full on Disney pout.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
"Okay," Jubes mutters, flatly at first, but a smile quickly forms. Jubilation slowly closes her eyes and, mistaking the moment, puckers her lips and waits for the inevitable kiss to come.

Instead, she gets a face of used air.

When the kiss does eventually come, Jubes just stares forward. She blinks. The moment seems to linger forever. Noriko doesn't get an answer right away. Eventually, Jubilation rises off the couch and puts her hands on her hips.

"How about you stop doing weird stuff to me and we call it quits on the movie?" Jubes suggests. Without even waiting for an answer, she's already heading for the door to the bedroom.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
This feels awkward.  So awkward.  Noriko realizes she screwed everything up way earlier than Jubes, but it's too late.  She has to commit.  All of the velocity in the world won't help her outrun her self-consciousness.  Noriko's brow suddenly crinkles at Jubilation's words.  "Look-" She starts, flustered, but Jubes is turning!

Look indeed.  "Okay!" Noriko surrenders happily to this request.  She finds herself almost skipping along behind Jubilation to make up for the long trance that watching her fiance walking away from her invokes.  At some point the tv just shorts out and Noriko nudges the bedroom door shut behind them with her foot.